Animals often use man-made structures for den or nesting sites, foraging sites, or as travel routes. These types of activities can cause damage to the structures. Animal intrusions onto electric power substations and the subsequent damage to those substations is a problem that has received more attention recently by those in the electric utility industry. Damage to substations comes in the form of outages, direct equipment damage, and safety hazards to maintenance personnel. Over the last twenty years, wildlife damage is among the major causes of momentary outages to substations. According to a National Rural Electric Cooperative Association Survey, animals are the third leading cause of power outages. Equipment repair, revenue lost while service is down, and the indirect costs of reduced consumer confidence are some of the expenses associated with power outages.
Utility companies have used a variety of techniques in attempts to reduce wildlife damage to substations. Among the techniques are chemical repellents, fence barriers, lights, decoys (artificial owls, hawks, snakes, etc.), anti-climbing devices, lineguards, electrical fences, bushing guards, and other structural barriers. It is believed that none of these measures has been particularly successful.
The present invention is provided to solve the problems discussed above and other problems, and to provide advantages and aspects not provided by prior wildlife mitigation systems of this type. A full discussion of the features and advantages of the present invention is deferred to the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.